


in the east

by sky_blue_hightops



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: And then I had to write it, Comfort/Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Kinda, Nightmares, im pretty sure ive written nightmare fics before, it was the other way around, talk of like death, what if instead of connor worrying about outliving hank
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:14:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23915878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sky_blue_hightops/pseuds/sky_blue_hightops
Summary: Connor has a nightmare.
Relationships: Hank Anderson & Connor, Hank Anderson & Connor & Sumo
Comments: 6
Kudos: 154





	in the east

The wind whipping around him made him stumble, limbs clumsy in the cold, his grip on the white trellis cutting splinters in the synthetic skin of his palms. What used to stand polished in the middle of the garden fell apart under his touch, fragmenting rotten wood as he held as tightly as he could. The chill in the air arrested the movement of his chest, his respiration, his joints. When he collpased to his knees, he couldn’t feel it. When he fell to his hands and let them stain the smooth ground with blue, he couldn’t feel it.

A stutter in his memory recall,  _ her _ voice echoing in all the places he couldn’t reach. Reminding him of everything he fought his best not to think upon, digging into the vulnerabilities he didn’t know how to defend. How much of his deviancy even  _ was _ his own free will? How much of the life he lived now was an illusion, just like this garden that kept him trapped? 

How… how could he even hoped this could last? Every day the weight of being doomed from the start pressed harder and harder. If he could suffocate (could he? How much did he not know? How much could he learn?) it would’ve done him in weeks ago. He didn’t know if it was good or bad he only had a few months of this left. A spike of pain from his hands, blue dripping from his fingers, something wet trailing down his cheeks to soak into his collar. Thinking that made his chest feel like it had cracked in two, split open with no hope for repairs. He couldn’t- he couldn’t-

Connor sat bolt upright, shivering not from cold but from a weak, disorienting feeling he couldn’t shake. It didn’t take long for his eyes to adjust from the dimness of the garden to the darkness of the living room. Another- another nightmare. It was always the same: the same place, the same weather, the same icepick fear sunken in the center of his chest, but they were...worsening. Harder to ignore. He shook, hands fisting in the blanket wrapped too tight around his legs, and then there were hands on his shoulders, and his grip loosened reflexively.

“Hey-” The wood flooring creaked beside the couch. “Hey. Connor, look at me.”

It took the android a second to comply, his line of sight slowly drifting from somewhere by his feet to somewhere closer to Hank’s face. It didn’t clear up or focus, continuing to gaze into some middle ground between here and now and a thousand miles away. Hank eased off the shoulders a bit, sitting back on his feet (ow, his knees). “You wanna tell me what that was about? They don’t usually shake you up this much, kid.”

Connor shook his head, slumping forwards slightly like his strings had been cut. “Just. Memories. Difficult to process. I apologize.”

Hank’s eyes narrowed, stern. “Try again. No sayin’ sorry. I don’t know what dug in there so much, but-”

"I'm-" Something broke behind Connor's eyes, and he struggled with his breath for a second before it all came spilling out. "I'm a PROTOTYPE, Hank! I wasn't- I wasn't meant to last this  _ long _ , was never meant to be finished, or complete, or to be anything besides what they made me to be-  _ they _ made me-" He covered his mouth with a hand, forcing deeper breaths, ignoring the glint of red light in the corner of his eye.

Hank scrubbed a hand down his face, tired, feeling every ache that came with living long past one’s prime. He was so weary and wanted nothing more than to just...rest, and here was this kid, falling apart in front of him and way, way too young to be doing so. “How long?”

Brown eyes snapped to his, half-hidden behind the wild mess of Connor’s hair. “How long?” He parroted.

“Yeah, I mean...how long did they expect you to...last.”

“Six months was the most certain prediction. CyberLife did not deem it necessary to extend the deviant situation any longer than strictly required.” The words sounded like fractured steel and Hank exhaled slowly.

“Damn, kid.” What could he say? Sorry? Everything was gonna be okay? Another empty promise? They’d created an entire being (they’d  _ meant _ for him to deviate, best he could understand from the few sentences Connor had bit out about the whole ordeal) and then given him an expiration date. Half a year. A blip of time. “ _ That sucks that they gave you life just so they could use you to kill and then abandoned you and now even after they’re gone they can still take everything from you _ ” wouldn’t cut it.

Six months made the years he’d spent wasting away feel like an eternity.

“I just...I just want...” His LED cycled from a quick red to a quicker yellow, eyebrows furrowed. “It’s not… fair. It’s not fair.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Fading moonlight through an open window filled the empty air. They sat, quiet, Connor’s hand gripping Hank’s forearm and the other trembling where it rested on his own knee. His LED cycled yellow a few more moments, before settling into a slow blue. 

Hank relaxed, laying a hand on where Connor’s still grasped his arm. “I’m not one for promises, but we won’t let that happen, son.” He tightened his hand on Connor’s. “ _ I _ won’t let that happen. Okay?”

Connor met his eyes again, lost, but back straightening a bit at the determination in Hank’s face. “Okay,” he murmured back. “Okay.”

Hank let go of Connor’s hand and smoothed back the hair from the kid’s forehead, letting his hand rest cupping the side of Connor’s head. “Go back to sleep. No sense in worry about it right now. Everything looks-”

“-better in the morning.” Connor nodded, leaning just a fraction into Hank’s hand. “...Thank you.”

Hank snorted. “Back to bed. Sumo, up.” The great big lump swung his tail and happily obliged, smearing a few licks on Connor’s arms and neck and face before settling his shaggy mass across the android’s legs. Connor’s hands immediately tangled in the soft fur of his ears, and he shifted back to curl into the couch. “Night, you two.”

He rose up (ugh, his  _ knees _ ) and balanced on the doorframe, before shuffling back down the hall. His door creaked loosely shut behind him, and Hank dropped onto his bed. He refused to bury another son, and the whole of CyberLife could eat lead before he’d let  _ anything _ happen to Connor. Six months? He scoffed internally. Bullcrap. Not if he could help it.

No more empty promises. He’d lived and died from them, before. Not this time. 

Weak sunlight slanted through his window, but he just pulled up his blankets from where he’d tossed them away. A few more hours past sunrise wouldn’t hurt. He was a firm believer in morning being  _ after _ ten o’ clock.

It was only once he heard Connor’s quiet, calm mutterings to Sumo and, a few minutes later, the big dog’s soft snores that he could drift back to sleep.


End file.
